by Kendra Pearson

In the early 1970s, a small group of SUNY ESF students, a Syracuse University professor, and an entire generation of local public school students built the foundation for what would become The Central New York Land Trust with more than 3,500 acres and 51 unique wildlife preserves spread across Onondaga and Oswego counties.  

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Jon Bart was in his last year at SUNY ESF when he attended Jim Karp's Environmental Law class at Syracuse University, and the two developed a friendship over their shared love of birding and desire to protect valuable natural areas.  Eventually, this led them to the idea of having a walkathon to raise money to purchase and protect undeveloped land in Onondaga County. 

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Jon Bart was able to convince SUNY ESF administration to let him use a vacant attic room in one of the academic buildings, which would serve as the makeshift headquarters for their group.  He mobilized fellow students and did much of the legwork to create the first Walk to Save the County.  The event entailed local middle and high school students raising pledge money for every mile they walked.

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Jim Karp was, as he describes himself, "the grown up of the group".  He helped lead, steer, and organize between students, faculty and the public, which was instrumental in establishing Save The County and procuring our first nature preserve, Baltimore Woods.  Because Save The County was so new and had not raised any money yet when Baltimore Woods was being sold, he reached out to The Nature Conservancy and convinced them to lend Save The County the purchase price, which would later be repaid with proceeds from the walk.

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Save The County could not predict whether they would raise the funds to pay back the loan, but the children came out in droves, raising more than $24,000, the bulk of the purchase price.  Future walks would prove to be even more successful, raising money to save land well into the late 1980s.  By the early 1990s, schools were saturated with several organizations vying for their fundraising potential.  Eventually we switched to a membership-based model for raising money, but this year we brought it back with our 50th anniversary Walk for Nature.

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Jon Bart graduated a year after the first walk and went on to receive his Master's in Theoretical Ecology and Doctorate in Environmental Science from Cornell.  He became a professor at Ohio State and a research scientist for the US Government, most notably working on high-profile conservation issues including Spotted Owls, Mariana Crow, Sage Grouse, and population trends in land birds.  

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For the past fifteen years, Jon has switched his focus to tackling poverty by empowering farmers with modern methods, especially irrigation, to produce certified organic products in Sierra Leone with his company Village Hope.  I spoke with Jon, who does not appear to have lost an ounce of the passion or hyperfocus he had back in 1972.  He works on both sides of the poverty issue for farmers by assisting them in implementing more modern farming methods, and by establishing a supply chain to get their products to consumers and manufacturers in other countries.   

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Jim Karp stayed with Save The County in various capacities for thirty years, helping to forge a path for us to become the sixth largest land conservation organization in NY State.  He has been instrumental in every facet of what we do, and his devotion to wildlife conservation is a core part of our foundation.

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After retirement, Jim moved to Arizona where he continued his passion for birding, which led him to another great legacy - the establishment of The Tubac Nature Center in Tubac, Arizona.  Starting from scratch in another borrowed room at The Tubac Community Center, Jim established a team and worked diligently to promote land conservation along the Santa Cruz River.  The Tubac Nature Center recently received a 160-acre donation of land consisting of desert, cottonwood forest, and manmade wetlands.  

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When asked about the current role the US has to play in land conservation, Jon Bart said "Despite all of the problems in the US right now, for people in places like Sierra Leone the US is heaven.  We are looked to as the leader, and when we get it right it contributes to their knowledge and sets an example for the whole world to follow."  

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Jim Karp similarly has a more global view of future land conservation efforts.  "Human migration has created increased pressure on the US, and our approach of building taller barriers has resulted in cutting off land animal migration in certain areas of North America."  In this way, Jim sees land conservation shifting towards creating safe passageways for animals and corridors of wildlife stretching across the continent.

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The CNY Land Trust is playing its part in this global macro model by increasing our efforts to save land, focusing on ethical management of our existing preserves, educating the public on the importance of conservation, and reconnecting habitats that have been cut off by human encroachment and intervention.